2024 Update
It has been years since I have updated what I have begun to understand. Let’s go through it.
- There is a verse from the Quran that speaks about the angel Gabriel placing the Quran in Muhammad’s heart. If you think of Muhammad as the meaning of the name it could mean. The praiseworthy are given the Quran in their hearts. Or, Those worthy of praise are given revelation in their hearts. In other words, if you look within you will find the guidance you seek. It seems to simple but seems so profound. What if that’s the best way to preserve Allah’s message. Place it in everyone’s heart? Maybe that’s why we have people of different religions, places, cultures, beliefs and times agreeing on certain principles.
- There seems to be two general groups of people but neither one of us should be in these groups. The givers and the takers. The givers help others and give freely of their time and energy. The takers tend to always give less than they received. They may give more but in order to get even more. When all is said and done takers will end up taking more than they ever give. Givers are just the opposite.
- In reality the taker is fine. It is actually up to the giver to fix this.
- Givers need to add themselves to the people they give. Givers need to be generous with themselves above others because they will default to giving and, without the strong foundation of giving themselves first, the takes will run them over. That is their nature and givers will have to accept that or suffer. The givers will give, and that is their nature, by giving to themselves just as generously the takers don’t become abusive and the givers can happily continue to give.
- You are already forgiven. Remember that verse where the Pharoah asked Moses to ask God to forgive him(the Pharoah). Moses was like “nah” and God said “If he would have asked me I would have done it.” The Pharoah was a horrible person, his nature didn’t allow him to ask for forgiveness. Those who ask will be forgiven. The problem isn’t whether or not you are forgiven cause, likely you are less evil than the Pharoah, the problem is Allah is waiting on you to forgive yourself.
- How do your forgive, you are a sinner… blah blah blah. Lies. You are not instantly evil you were a baby. Babies are rarely evil. You grew up and, as your brain developed, so did your personality and your learned or remembered crazy things that became your operating system. Sometimes you did horrible things and sometimes you just believed you are horrible. As we discussed earlier everything is forgiven but you learned some things shouldn’t be. That’s not true. Everything can be forgiven but not by every human. We often can’t forgive because we haven’t processed what we did. We didn’t face it or take it apart or apologized, we fear the other person not forgiving us. That may happen but are you seeking forgiveness to repair your ego or to make amends?
- Your ego is your God. In the realm of ego we have a belief that “respect and shame” are really really important. In reality they are obstacles. If you have to remove your clothes to save a person’s life, would you? If you have to be embarrassed to save a person, would you? If you have to look like a fool.. etc. If the answer is no or conditional than you may need to reassess your relationship with your ego. If the answer is Allah comes first you will succeed.
- If not my ego how do I treat myself well? See the ego is bad cause it will hurt others for your to succeed. It is good cause it protects you. Here’s a mental hack to figure out what is right without ego. Picture yourself standing in front of your Creator. If your Creator is good and is like the best version of a father and mother in one what do you do? You have a bowl of food and someone next to you has an empty bowl. Ego might say, it’s there fault, they are probably evil and don’t deserve it. Allah can provide for them too… etc. Insecurity might say, give them the whole bowl. You can skip this meal. Now picture yourself and the other person as innocent children. NOW what do you do? You share. 50/50 might be right but not always. If you are the adult carrying a child what do you do? You need more food because you are the protector/provider. The same goes for food, money, authority, etc.
- I’m done. Ask questions and I will keep answering them in this blog. Use the “Reach Out” feature above.